You’ve likely heard all of the buzz around Hollis Scarborough’s famous “reading rope." The visual compares the processes involved in successful reading to the strands in a rope. Because reading and writing are so intertwined, it would make sense that in addition to a reading rope, there would be a writing rope, too. The reading rope gives a framework for how readers make sense of text that already exists. The writing rope helps students put words and sentences together to create text that is meaningful.
The Creation of “The Writing Rope”
After the reading rope received so much attention, educator and literacy consultant Joan Sedita was inspired to create its writing counterpart. She used the powerful metaphor of a rope as a way to make teaching and assessing writing more formulaic. Sedita created the writing rope because teachers who were able to make sense of all of the necessary components of teaching reading faltered when trying to determine how to instruct and assess good quality writing.
Just like the strands in the Reading Rope, Sedita included all of the components of skilled writing in her visual. These strands are Critical Thinking, Syntax, Text Structure, Writing Craft, and Transcription. It’s important to note that transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) used to comprise a vast majority of writing instruction. Anyone remember copying letters off the board in cursive for an entire writing lesson? Now, these skills only make up a fifth of Sedita’s writing rope package.
Critical Thinking
This strand includes those skills students need in order to brainstorm, plan, organize, and execute their writing. Everything from researching a topic to choosing a logical plot line uses critical thinking skills.
Syntax
Syntax refers to the way in which we order words in order to create sentences that follow conventional grammatical rules. This strand also includes things like punctuation, verb tense, and inclusion of detail.
Text Structure
The text structure strand includes knowledge of the structure and organization of different text types and purposes. Narrative structure is very different from that of informational texts, and more different still from argumentative texts. It also refers to the specific structure of a paragraph. More formal paragraphs should start with an introduction, include at least three sentences that provide either reasons or evidence, and a conclusion sentence at the end, for a minimum of five sentences. Transition words also fall under text structure, as well as literary devices like cause/effect, compare/contrast, etc.
Writing Craft
There are several aspects of our writing that go into writing craft. Word choice, awareness of the task and purpose for one’s readers, as well as how and when an author uses literary devices all work together to contribute to an author’s writng craft.
Transcription
The last strand is the only one that focuses exclusively on what handwriting looks like and how to spell words. While this is not the most important strand, since we would argue that content is much more important than how writing looks, there is still value in learning spelling rules in order to encode and in knowing what a word should look like so that others can read our writing.
Conclusion
The Writing Rope gives teachers a great visual for ensuring that there is balance in writing instruction and that not too much focus is given to one area over another. Using the Writing Rope as a guide, we can make sure that we are covering all of the necessary bases in helping our students become competent, well-rounded writers.